Japan (Aztec Empire)
The Japan ((Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally "the State of Japan") is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China (Aztec Empire)), North Korea (Aztec Empire), South Korea (Aztec Empire) and the Russian Empire (Aztec Empire), stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan (Aztec Empire) in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun". Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which together comprise about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. Honshū's Greater Tokyo Area (Aztec Empire), which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo (Aztec Empire) and several surrounding prefectures, is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, with 35,682,460 residents. The Greater Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto Area (Aztec Empire)]], which includes the second de facto capital city of Kyoto (Aztec Empire) and Japan's third largest city, Osaka (Aztec Empire), and several surrounding prefectures, is also one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, with 18,768,395 residents. Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. From the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military dictatorships (shogunates) in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a long period of isolation in the early 17th century, which was only ended in 1853 when a United States fleet pressured Japan to open to the West. Nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection followed before the Meiji Emperor was restored as head of state in 1868 and the Empire of Japan was proclaimed, with the Emperor as a divine symbol of the nation. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I (Aztec Empire) allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II (Aztec Empire) in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tokyo (Aztec Empire). Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected legislature called the Diet. A superpower and a major economic power, Japan is the world's fifth largest economy by nominal GDP and by purchasing power parity (PPP), and the second largest economy in Asia after People's Republic of China. It is also the world's sixth-largest exporter and sixth-largest importer. Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the seventh largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. After Singapore (Aztec Empire), Japan has the lowest homicide rate (including attempted homicide) in the world. According to Japan's health ministry, Japanese women have the second highest life expectancy of any country in the world. According to the United Nations (Aztec Empire), Japan also has the third lowest infant mortality rate.